


you've been on my mind since the flood

by ccuddlefish



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: AU - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, M/M, this is my first long thing for them i'm having fun leave me alone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:46:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6888637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ccuddlefish/pseuds/ccuddlefish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>heaven help a fool who falls in love</p>
<p>post RE6 AU for fun, piers has his own little team and runs into a friend(?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. and i don't know where to begin

**Author's Note:**

> i love fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsGODTySH0E

Piers moved at a quick clip through the undergrowth, cursing under his breath. Not for the first time, he was cursing the BSAA uniform, all the layers of kevlar and cloth and harnesses and shit he definitely didn't want bogging him down in hundred-degree weather. When he pulled at his undershirt, hooking a finger under the cloth, it came away damp. Not really the best scenario for his first time leading a mission, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

The rest of the team must have felt it too, baking under the hot sun and the humid air that seemed to hang heavy and smother you. The dense patches of shade were in theory welcoming, and the broad, fleshy leaves were alright shelter, but the damp heat was worse there, if that was possible. They passed into one of those shady areas now, the dappled ground making soft sucking noises under their boots. Beta Team moved as a unit, trying to cover as much ground as fast as possible.

Piers had just pulled up the locator on his wrist when a whine of static screeched across the air. The device in his ear had to be waterlogged to hell, but he could still hear the voice clearly enough as it growled over the airwaves.

"Fuck this." Alejandro griped.

"Radio silence, private." Chimed another. To Piers' right, Georgia tucked her long ponytail up into her cap and swiveled her head to take in the forest around her. On the captain's wrist was a pale green cluster on a slightly darker green topographical map, a cluster of squares and prisms and triangles projected into the moisture-laden air. Piers blinked. Base hadn't said anything about a village. Were they in someone else's sector? They couldn't be that off track. He verified with the little red blip on his wrist once more and switched the channel to broad.

"Beta to base. We're about 20 minutes out. There's a settlement north-northeast, 1 klick. Should we sweep for survivors? Over." Piers waited for confirmation. After a moment, base radioed back, a fuzzy signal that he had to strain to hear.

"Check, but don't get too comfortable. You have a rendezvous with Gamma and Theta in two hours. Over." The base radio operator sounded harassed, to say the least. It gave Piers an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. He dodged a fallen tree branch that was thick with mossy growth, and answered.

"Ten-Four, Base." He switched back to local, and the fuzz from Base slid into background noise. Again, in his ear, he heard his private, running his damn mouth-

"What's the wager on survivor count? Big fat zero-"

"It's not a game, Ale." He barked, and the line hissed once, an intake of breath, then went dead. Alejandro turned his head and scratched under the neckline of his vest, looking sheepish.

Harsh, Piers' brain chimed. He told it where it could stuff it.

"Oof." Muttered another voice on the comm. Elle snickered and hitched her heavy pack higher on her shoulders, making a metallic clatter. Piers chewed the inside of his cheek and reminded himself of why he'd signed her on in the first place. Thankfully, everybody else was too hot and too irritable to speak, so they passed the rest of the trek in radio silence. Silence save for, of course, the hiss from Base. Piers wondered briefly if the humidity was fucking with the signal, but this wasn't the first time this had happened, so he quickly put it out of his mind.

The "settlement" was two farmhouses nearly nose-to-nose and a thin, straggly line of outbuildings fringing two small fields, ploughed but not sown. Too hot, Piers supposed. It was a record summer for South America this year, his brain supplied. The buildings were relatively small, in pretty good shape for being out the baking sun, and appeared to be completely deserted. Beyond the buildings and the fields, the forest pulled tight again, swallowing the edges of the sky. It had to be no more than two miles square, all of it.

Piers made a face and wiped his forehead.

"Alright, Beta. Quick sweep, and then we move on. We have to make that meetup with Theta and Gamma in-" He lifted his sleeve and checked the warm glass of his watch, tilting it so it was out of the sun's glare. "An hour forty-five. Split up. Ten minutes. I catch you sitting, I'm leaving your ass here." He eyed his second-in-command, adjusting her vest and wringing the dampness out of her ponytail. She met his look and smiled reassuringly.

"Georgia. Take the northern barn. Ale, Max, with her. Play nice." She nodded briefly, and they rounded the barn to the big, warped white doors. He waited until they'd rounded the corner and turned to the others.

"Elle, Gray. With me. We're gonna pry these doors open." He gestured to the lofty, peeling doors next to them.

They were tougher than they looked, but with two people behind him, he made quick work of the rusted-through hinges. The doors squeaked open, letting out a rush of foul air. But besides a dark stain on the floor and a broken barn window, there was nothing to raise a fuss over. Piers stepped inside and clicked the flashlight on his gun, brushing the beam over the rafters and into a few empty shelving units, revealing absolutely nothing of use. The barn was lofty, open, and pitch dark. It looked like the lightbulbs had blown, and little shards of glass glittered on the ground among the dirt and shreds of wood to confirm that theory. Even in the relatively large space, the only furniture made apparent was a workbench and a grime-encrusted carpet, tossed aside in a hurry. It looked like whoever had used this was long-gone, and whatever they had held there was gone with them. Behind him, Elle snorted. Again, Piers reminded himself of her resumé.

He was turning to leave when the mic blared in his ear, making everyone jump. Georgia's voice screeched across the line, slightly frantic.

"We've found someone." She paused for a moment. Then, as an afterthought: "Over."

Piers broke into a run.

He found them in one of the outbuildings, Max outside the door, rifle drawn. It was a small thing, only about ten feet square and solidly built with a red tile roof that glowed orange in the sun. It was nearly noon. They had an hour and a half to meet Theta and Gamma.

Piers ducked to make it under the sagging doorframe and entered a small room that was, blissfully, cool and dark. The only window was covered with a blanket, making it difficult to see, but in the corner he could make out four figures, three large and one smaller, hudded there. Georgia was speaking softly, and he recognised it as Portuguese. Another voice, louder, and pitchy with fright, answered, talking too fast for Piers to catch anything. He knelt down next to Alejandro, who up until now had just been sitting and watching everything unfold.

"What's the situation?"

"You're lucky you pushed for a translator on this trip, Cap. Don't speak a lick of English."

"Of course they don't." Piers muttered mildly. His eyes adjusted to the dark, and he was able to make out the two figures better. A woman and a child. The little girl was staying glued to her mother's side, looking suspiciously at Georgia as she conversed. His second paused, glanced over her shoulder at him, and spoke in English.

"It looks like they caught wind of the, ah- leftovers of C. Apparently there's a couple of them kicking around up north. They're pretty shaken." That was to be expected, and it correlated with everything they knew about this mission. Survey and pull out to let the cleanup team take care of it. Apparently this section of the forest was crawling with C mutants.

"We need to get them out of here." Piers stood up.

"Well, unless there's anywhere nearby that we can land a heli, that might be difficult." Georgia wrinkled her nose and relayed something to the mother, who replied in earnest.

"Nearest helipad is the drop point. That's half an hour back south." Ale supplied helpfully, checking his locator. Outside, the rest of the team shifted, trying to listen in.

"Of course it is." Piers growled, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. If the forest outside was as infested as the report had said, there was no way two civilians were going to make their way back to the helipad. Piers bit his lip, and switched his radio channel to broad.

"Beta to base. We have two survivors. Civilians. Over."

"Your mission is to observe and pull out, Beta. Over." The operator nearly snarled the over, mixing with the static to make an ugly hiss.

"I'm aware, but-" Base cut him off.

"Send one of your men back to the heli with the civilians, and proceed to your destination. Confirm. Over."

"I'll be short a body, Base-"

"Please confirm, Beta. Over." Piers sighed through his nose.

"Ten-four, Base. Over." Reluctantly, he switched the channel back to local.

"Georgia." She nodded to indicate she was listening.

"I need you to get them back to the helipad. They'll send a helicopter to pick you up." Georgia blinked, shocked.

"I can't just leave-"

"You can, and you will. Make sure they get back to the heli in one piece." Her face settled, and she sighed.

"You're short one man, then." Piers sighed.

"We'll make do. Get moving." She nodded slowly and turned to the woman, starting to speak quickly. The woman spoke what Piers assumed was an agreement, and they stood, making to leave. Piers slipped outside and gathered the rest of Beta, who were standing in a jagged semicircle, kicking the dirt and otherwise looking useless. Georgia was a great officer and a better second, and it wasn't going to be easy without her. She came through the doorway, waving as she started to make her way towards the southern edge of the open field. Elle stuck out her arm as Georgia passed, grabbing her by the shoulder.

"Be careful." She looked worried. Georgia nodded, trying to put on a bright face. A trooper, that one. Eventually, she and the two people following her disappeared into the shade, the glare from Georgia's harness finally winking out.

"Alright, Beta. Listen carefully. We're proceeding as planned to the rendezvous site. We've got a grid to search, and then we meet up with Theta and Gamma. No change in plans."

"No change- we're short a man!" Max cried, re-holstering his rifle.

"And we'll make do. Site's one klick north. We need to get moving." He set off, and the rest of them fell in line behind him, if reluctantly. The terrain was softer beyond the edge of the clearing, and a few ponds started emerging along the periphery of their trail. Eventually, the groud began to slope into a gentle incline, indicating that they were coming into a valley. Another quick, nervous double-check to his locator confirmed- the destination was ahead, north another 500 metres. Beta team had been moving in dead silence until now, presumably worried at the loss of his second. The worry hung over their heads like a fog. They were short a body, and that was never good. However, just as easily as they had slipped into a nervous silence, Alejandro broke it, laughing loudly and swinging the barrel of his rifle at a fern, breaking it off and sending it flying. Behind him, he could feel eyes on his back.

"How's your Portuguese, Cap?" Ale asked nonchalantly. Piers chuckled, almost glad for the interruption.

"It was rusty at the last family reunion, and that was two years ago. I'm almost scared to find out." Elle giggled from behind him, and he heard a snicker from Gray.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Max called. "As funny as it sounds to watch the Captain make an ass of himself, I really don't-" He stopped short. Piers blinked, but only until he spun around and looked ahead of him did he understand why.

Ahead of them loomed a huge brick building, three storeys high and blackened with soot. It was carved out of the jungle with barely any room to spare, as if a giant hand had simply picked it up and placed it there. The trees around it scraped the sides and leaves brushed the brick. Moss was growing near the ground, making a green carpet on one corner. Swallowing, Piers lifted his locator and looked at the red blip in the center of his screen.

10 meters to your destination, said the readout.

This was their grid.

Beta team stood, barely breathing.

"The fuck is it?" Somebody called. Max lifted his rifle onto his shoulder and scratched his head.

"A warehouse?" Piers supplied. It was massive. A mountain of brick. This was going to take hours to search, at least.

"This isn't the rendezvous, then? Maybe they've doubled us up with Gamma." Ale asserted, a tremor in his voice.

"Or Echo." Gray chirped.

"No way we're searching this on our own and still making the rendezvous, Captain." Elle sounded unsure when she spoke, for the first time today.

"I know, alright? We'll circle the building, get a better idea of what we're dealing with." Piers sighed through his teeth and started to walk towards the southern wall. Beta tramped along behind him, the trees rustling.

They found the entrance a full circle around this wing of the building, a set of metal double doors with a half-rusted chain wrapped around the handles. Piers gave it a half-hearted tug, and it fell away in his hands. The lock was rusted through, and it left his gloves with dark red stripes down the palms. He nudged the door open with his boot and shone his light into the doorway. It was surely abandoned, but what was a place like this doing in the middle of a forest? It would be an ideal place for any C-mutants to crash, if anything, so Beta had to be careful. As if remembering this, Piers slowly lifted his hand and gestured quietly over his shoulder for the team to follow him inside.

It was empty. And dusty. And it smelled like the inside of his college dorm freezer. Like rot and rusted metal. Piers had to fight not to cough, and he caught Max pulling his camo net up over his face. Once he'd processed that, he tilted his head up and took in the warehouse before him. First of all, he saw neither hide nor hair of another team. The place looked like nobody alive'd seen it in years. It appeared to be a storage area for a logging plant: mounds of sawdust collected like sand dunes in the corners of the floor. A metal catwalk was the second floor, crisscrossing the room and leading to several darkened doorways. The panel lights in the ceiling were dim, but still looked functional. If they could find a breaker, he'd bet they could search the first floor.

There. Next to the door. Piers prised the metal lid off the breakers, getting himself a bruise on his index finger for his trouble. He looked up at the ceiling, flipping them off and on again to reset the fuses. The industrial lights filled the air with an ugly hum, but started up just the same. The room somehow managed to look dustier with columns of light illuminating it.

"Can you radio Gamma, Alejandro? See if they're around somewhere." Piers muttered, and Ale got down on one knee, unclipping the local transmitter from his pack and starting to extend the antenna.

"Will do, Boss. I don't like the look of this." Piers nodded, deep in thought.

"Alright. Disperse and sweep the main floor," Piers called, already walking to the furthest corner. "Yell if you find something." The uneasy feeling from before had worsened, leaving Piers' stomach churning with dread as he kicked aside a pile of woodchips. Something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it, and his search was finding nothing but tarps and loops of waxed rope and light, downy wood shavings that fluttered whenever the air shifted wrong.

The metal scaffolding above him groaned, and Piers realized two things at once.

The slight buzz of static from Base was gone.

And there was a body- no, a person on the catwalk. He'd barely turned around when a voice rang out, reverberating funny off the high ceiling.

"Don't move. Hands up." Max called, pointing his rifle at the spot above Piers' head. A hiss of breath.

"Alright, alright." A voice growled, too familiar. The clatter of a handgun hitting metal. Piers moved on instinct, sprinting to the spot with his heart in his throat.

"Holy shit." Came that deep, familiar voice. Jake, hands still up in half-hearted surrender, was smiling down at him.


	2. i suppose a friend is a friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gay lol -aya

"Jake?" Piers laughed out loud, as if unable to believe his eyes.

He was dripping with sweat and there was dirt smeared from the edge of his jaw halfway to his cheekbone. The sleeve of his crisp uniform was torn. But other than that, he looked just like the last time Jake had seen him. His tongue tripped over the words, but he finally managed to choke out,

"The one and only." Piers held up a hand, and the man behind him lowered his rifle, brow wrinkling. Boots dislodged sawdust, and three more people cut through the dusty air, tense and suspicious. Each had a matching BSAA patch, and a very big gun. Jake leaned down and hopped off the scaffold, boots hitting the ground hard, throwing up twin clouds of dust. He shoved his handgun into his belt and started towards them, grinning. Piers met him halfway, colliding with him full force and pulling him into a hug. How long had it been?

"Did he say..." The whisper happened microseconds after they collided, and Jake realized that it may not have been the best idea. But Piers had his arms around his neck and- Christ, that grip hadn't gotten any weaker. Jake peered over Piers' shoulder. Four suspicious faces stared back at him, four people about his age, in BSAA getup. One woman, three men. Was this...

"You've been busy." Jake muttered. Piers laughed. His head was pressed to the hollow of Jake's collarbone for a moment, and his breath was hot when he spoke.

"You've been gone a while." Piers retorted, and he instinctively winced. Deserved that. The one with the rifle muttered something under his breath. He had a wide, open face and clear, watery blue eyes, goggles pushed up above the brim of his tan cap. He turned to the tiny, dark woman behind him, face contorting. Jake looked away, but despite everything, he found himself straining to catch the tense, whispered exchange. He was still trying when Piers stepped back and fixed that look on him, half glad and half annoyed, arms crossed. Jake's heart did a confused little half-skip in his chest.

"You're heading Alpha now?" He collected himself and whistled. One of the team members behind him flinched. Piers didn't notice, or he pretended not to.

"Beta. We're following up on C's leftovers. What brings you here?"

"A favor. Seems you Americans can't get enough of me."

"Sherry in your ear?" He jerked his chin towards the sleek black microphone clipped to his ear. Jake brushed his fingers against it. It'd been quiet for so long, he'd forgotten it was there.

"Nah, some chick I don't know- Hold on." He pressed the button on his radio, trying to get in contact with- well, anyone. No answer. Predictably, the line was fucking dead. All he heard was a faint buzz of static.

"The hell?" He muttered. Tried knocking the earpiece back into place, but that didn't do shit except hurt his head and bend the wire.

"No good. We've been trying to get through for fifteen minutes, now." One of Piers' crew members spoke up, nervousness outweighing suspicion. The rest of Beta shifted from foot to foot, looking at the marks their boots made on the floor.

"Alejandro, can you try Base again? Just one more time." The kid with the radio sighed out through his nose and nodded, annoyance darkening his face. _"_

_Hey, what about this one? Alejandro." Piers leaned over Jake's lap, shoving a sheaf of papers under Sherry's nose. She glanced at it for a moment and blinked._

_"Whose file is this?" She took the papers from him, biting her lip and settling further into the armchair. They were in her office, holed up in the early hours before a meeting. Piers had spread his papers out on the table in front of him, a pen in his hand and another one absentmindedly tucked behind his ear._

_"Wait, isn't this confidential? Am I allowed to see this?"_

_"As if your security clearance isn't double mine." Piers said dismissively and shuffled a few more files. Sherry laughed at that._

_"That's true." She chirped, turning her eyes to the paper and making a face. Jake pulled the corner of the page down and rolled his eyes._

_"You want my opinion?" He leaned back into the couch cushions, crossing one leg over the other. Sherry sighed._

_"No, but-" Jake cut her off._

_"Look at this kid. Four demerits in training, attitude issues-" Sherry huffed._

_"But you're going to tell me anyway." She rolled her eyes and sagged back into the chair, putting her feet up on Jake's lap. He stuck out his tongue._

_"Attitude issues? Sounds like you, Jake." Piers said mildly, pausing to make a note in the yellow pad by his elbow, already half-filled with a line after line of straight, neat handwriting._

_"Ouch, babe."_

"My guess? Something's jamming the signal." The man sighed and crouched by the radio box clipped to his pack, adjusting the antenna idly. Annoyed, he fiddled with a few of the buttons, pulling off his cap and trying to fan himself with it. Piers chewed the inside of his cheek.

"Or base is dead." He said softly.

"Dead-" The girl's head snapped up, and everyone froze, eyes going wide.

"Radio Gamma." Piers stepped forward, half-running to kneel by the radio. The rest of Beta huddled around him, and now Jake was the one feeling out of the loop. The man obliged, fiddling with a slider until he found a signal, twisting a knob to amplify it until the harsh crackle filled the room.

"This is Beta. What's your position? Over." Piers spoke, one hand on his rifle, the other worrying with a hole in the side of his sleeve.

"This is Lisa. We're in that freaky f-" Static. Noise. Alejandro fiddled with a few knobs until the sound came through again. "-mill. Over." The woman on the other end of the line was breathing hard, in staccato, ragged gasps.

"I think we're close to you, Gamma. Can you give us your coordinates?" Piers said into the static. A few indiscriminate noises poured from the speaker, barely heard under the interference. The humidity, the building- maybe both.

"Coordinates? Fuckin'-" In a moment of relatively clear air, a crack sounded. The grating sound of steel on stone. "As if I have time to whip out my damn locator and check- Listen, Beta. We're in a storage chamber. Three floors-" She paused. A gunshot, and everyone jumped. Beta huddled closer to the radio, the sickly glow from the readout mixing with the yellow of the electric lights and making their faces seem washed-out, gaunt. Jake had moved to kneel next to them without really thinking. He hadn't realized he was doing it until suddenly he could feel Piers shifting sideways and they were pressed together at the shoulder, the hip. His face was fixed on the radio, but his hand was still fussing with the widening hole in his uniform. Jake lifted his arm as subtly as he could and gently placed a hand over Piers', making him freeze. He glanced at him briefly, a question he didn't have the time to ask fluttering over his features. Piers turned his head back to the radio, but under Jake's hand, his fingers balled into a tight fist.

"'Round South. Got it?"

"Ten-four. We're at the-" He checked his free wrist. "East wing, from what I can tell. We'll be there-."

"ASAP. Over." Gamma's captain barked. Piers grimaced, the first to stand.

"You heard her. Let's move." One by one, they rose, shouldering their bags and settling into formation. Ammo was checked. Grenades. The girl lifted the (suspiciously huge) pack off her shoulders and rearranged something inside it, muttering to herself.

"Elle?" Piers called, and her head snapped up, hands stilling. "Elle, can you-"

_"Elle? That's her name?" Sherry quirked an eyebrow. Jake snorted and focused his attentions on her tiny boots in his lap, starting to tie her shoelaces together. After a brief moment of half-hearted protest, she raised the file to her eyes and squinted at the tiny text, shoes forgotten._

_"Elle Correa." Piers supplied absentmindedly, tapping a pen on his lower lip, engrossed in another file._

_"You sure can pick 'em, Piers. She's got more infractions than the last kid." Jake had finished tying Sherry's shoelaces into knots, so he leaned over and caught a glimpse of the paper before she snapped it away._

_"Six demerits, huh- I gotta meet this kid." Jake chuckled._

_"She was top of her class. Specialization in demolition." Piers said, chewing on the pen cap now. He was flipping through another box of files, stress starting to agitate his movements._

_"What good is that if she can't take orders?" Sherry shot back, trying to stand and nearly bowling over. She glared at Jake._

_"You're too sensible." Piers rolled his eyes, blue leaking down his lower lip. He coughed, confused, and touched his hand to the ink dripping down his chin, now. The cheap plastic of the cap had ruptured._

_"Ink poisoning." Jake quickly confiscated the chewed-up pen, instinctively swiping his thumb over Piers' bottom lip. It came away blue and did nothing but smear the ink in a path across his cheek. Piers pushed his hand away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sighing. Across the room, Sherry groaned, setting the papers on the desk with a soft slap and picking up another package from the pile._

_"There's no such thing as too sensible, Piers."_

So, that was it then. They were leaving, and Jake was going to be left without the line to his employers, in the middle of an abandoned sawmill crawling with-

"I'm coming with you." Jake declared. Piers' shoulders twitched, and he spun around, glaring up at Jake under his eyelashes. But he wasn't threatening anymore. Not in the same way as in Edonia. It wasn't that he'd gotten soft- that look would have sent anybody else running. But now Jake knew him too well. They were in too deep, even if neither of them knew what the hell they were doing. And he wasn't about to let him run off and-

Jake knew what he'd found lurking in the abandoned factory's rotting corridors. No way was he leaving him alone. Was he going to say any of that? God, no. He was going to do what he always did and bottle it up. Deal with it later. Even if he'd been postponing 'later' since he was sixteen. So Jake curled his lip and crossed his arms.

A long pause. He could hear the room shifting and creaking as the factory crumbled.

"You're kidding." Piers said, finally.

"It's not negotiable." He growled, looking away from his face. He heard Piers inhale sharply.

"Fall in, Muller." Piers grimaced and turned away. Jake pulled his handgun out of his belt and hovered at his heels as they quickly moved towards a set of double doors, and beyond them-

A long, nearly lightless hallway loomed.


	3. and we all know how this will end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *puts sufjan stevens lyrics as chapter titles* this totally fits my mood and makes sense and also i love fun

"Think it's C?" Elle whispered into the dank air. There was little to no light apart from their flashlights in this cramped corridor, but at least it was cool. Wet, rank, and nearly pitch black, but cool. Jake and Piers headed the team as they stepped further away from the electric lights and into the dead factory.

"What else?" The taller man- Alejandro- replied.

"Ouro Boreas, or however the hell you say it-"

"Don't be stupid, Elle." Elle huffed, and fell silent.

The silence was worse. Every groan of metal sounded like a gunshot. Piers must have thought so, too. Quietly, he cleared his throat and clicked the safety off. The noise it made was spine-grating, reverberating off the slimy stone walls.

"How much of this place did you check?" Piers asked casually, inclining his head and pressing his radio again. Just like all the other times, it was a futile gesture.

"I made my way from the North wing. It's pretty much what it says on the tin. Place's fucked. Overrun." Jake sighed, dodging what looked like a dried grease stain that stretched parallel to the wall, a few meters long and sticky as hell. Piers swallowed.

"C." It wasn't a question, but Jake answered.

"Chances are, yeah." Piers tensed, his suspicions confirmed, and he motioned for Beta to keep up as he set off at a quicker pace. Staring at Piers' back as he broke into a jog, Jake realized that he wanted to go home. A year ago, refusing a paid job would have been a foreign concept to him. But now, he just wanted it to be over. All that mercenary shit was blissfully uncomplicated compared to this. Maybe part of him still itched at being on the US government's payroll, favor or no favor. He loved Sherry, but there was no way that many years of bad blood was going to dissolve any time soon.

And there it was again, that niggling little voice that reminded him how simple it had been, killing for money. He was damn good at it, too. Since he was sixteen and he had to lie through his teeth to get hired. But he wasn't starving anymore, he reminded himself. If he'd taken the easy way out, he might still be counting rations and ammo and lying in alleys and half-dug trenches. Else dead in some torn-up gutter somewhere. The idea didn't interest him at all, he told himself. Nostalgia. It was your life. It was all you knew. Move on. Besides, if he'd stayed, he wouldn't have met Sherry, wouldn't have known-

"So- What? You're on the straight and narrow now?" Piers asked mildly, flicking his flashlight on with his thumb. Jake blinked and shoved through a set of double doors, reaching his spare hand up to cover his face as a flashlight beam roved over his eyes. The room they were in was relatively large, and would have been roomy, if it weren't for the crates and cardboard boxes that filled it nearly to the ceiling, forcing Beta team to wind slowly through the spaces in between, like rats in a maze.

"Just about as straight as you, buddy." Jake replied, lifting the edge of a crate with his shoe. Underneath, nothing but another crusty oil stain. Piers drove his elbow into his ribs.

Ow.

Jake smiled, Piers rolled his eyes, and for a moment he forgot that they were currently marching through what Jake qualified as the worst kind of cesspool.

Rudely, the kid with the rifle decided to remind him. He shouldered between him and Piers, leaning slightly and muttering something to his captain. Jake swallowed the annoyance he felt and started scraping at the stain under his feet with the heel of his shoe. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Piers' expression drop about five notches, from "mildly annoyed" to "pissed off," and felt a petty twang of vindication. Rifle(Was that the one that had the gun to his head earlier?) sighed and stalked off, winding through the crates to the far end of the room.

"That the only door, Max?" Piers called, hopping up onto a crate. 

_Jake looked down and caught a glimpse of a photo paperclipped an open file._

_"Hey. This one's cute." Sherry groaned quietly, fingers still fumbling with her laces. Jake reached over and snatched the photograph, holding it up to the ceiling light. A young man in a cap and goggles, cropped from a larger photo. Big, round eyes, smiling brightly, sun making a halo behind his blond hair and throwing his face into shadow. Piers took a look at it, hassled and disinterested, wiping his face with the back of his hand._

_"Shit, Muller. You're a tactical genius." He laughed and snatched the photograph back._

_"Lighten up. We were all thinking it." Jake muttered, pulling a throw pillow from the floor and jamming it under his own head._

_"I like this one, Piers. Leadership qualities." Sherry called._

_"Noted. That's... Gardner. Max."_

Jake didn't like Max Gardner, but he kept it to himself as the kid yelled back,

"Yeah."

Piers waved the rest of the squad over. The last person was jogging to stand beside him when he tilted his head to the side and laid his ear on the cold metal of the door. Two seconds passed, then three. Piers looked confused. Then, loudly enough that it could be heard through the door, two gunshots in quick succession. Piers jumped, and without further hesitation threw open the doors and bolted through. Jake followed him, and stepped directly into a pool of something red and sticky, something that clung to his boot when he lifted it, mouth half-open in shock. The whole room stunk of blood. It was tall and well-lit, another warehouse area with a catwalk and piles and piles of sawdust- but no logs in sight.

Hearing another scream of metal, Jake gritted his teeth and pressed forward, throwing himself behind a box for cover. His spine slammed into the ground, knocking the wind out of him, and for a moment everything went fuzzy. Over his shoulder, he heard one more gunshot. Boots running across the floor. Jake poked his head over and raised his pistol, peering up over the sight, blinking to clear the blur from his eyes. Something fast and black, with way too many legs for comfort, shot past him, bearing down on a woman holding a shotgun in her hands. As Jake watched, she spat blood, tossed her hair out of her eyes, and put two shells into its face. Jake remembered himself and followed it up with a bullet to its midsection. It hit one of the many legs and made a nasty cracking noise. The thing screeched, leg almost collapsing under it. The woman in front of it was reloading. He caught a glimpse of another person with a rifle perched on the scaffolding that bisected the room's top floor. Jake stood, sidestepping the crate, and behind him he heard someone else do the same. The thing (spider?) hissed, coughed up something green, and booked it before anybody could move, dragging its lame leg behind it and disappearing into a dark doorway across from the one they'd entered through.

And just like that, it fucked right off.

For a moment, nobody did anything. Gamma's captain, a short woman with red hair, found her way to a crate and collapsed onto it, wiping her face with her glove.

"Hey, Piers." She sighed, letting her shotgun loll against her leg.

"What happened, Lisa?" Piers stepped towards her, stowing his rifle away and kneeling next to the green stain the thing had left behind.

"I don't know... Shit. There must have been three or four of them. Pounced on us as soon as we opened those lights." She paused to wipe her mouth again. Piers handed her a canteen of water and she drank, dripping it down her chin and cursing. "No casualties, but some of us got pretty banged up. We've got our medic on them now."

"Does he need help?" Lisa glanced up.

"If you could spare it-"

"Sure. Gray, do you mind?" He looked up and glanced at the man at the back of his team, half-hidden by Elle and Ale, whispering to each other. He smiled, softly, and pulled a relatively large white case from his pack, emblazoned with a familiar red cross.

_"G-ray." Sherry stretched out the syllables with her tongue._

_"First name?" Piers called, looking up and pulling a stack onto the couch with him, sitting between them with his legs crossed._

_"That is his first name." Sherry bit her lip._

_"Give that here-"_

_"Do you have a med specialist yet?" Sherry handed him the folder, taking a swig of water from the glass at her elbow._

_"BSAA policy didn't require a medical officer in each unit until recently. We're severely understaffed."_

_"Yawn. Look at him, he's so boring." Jake pointed to the picture. A cute kid with dark skin, round eyes and a big smile on his face. Gray Johnson looked like a normal person, not the sort of BSAA officer Jake was used to._

_"They can't all be like you. I'm choosing a team, not starting a gang." He turned to sherry, hand outstretched. "He's a med specialist, this Gray kid? Sounds perfect."_

_"What did I ever do to you, huh?" Jake laughed. Piers snorted, not even dignifying that with an answer, leaning back with the file in his lap until he was crushing Jake's spine into the armrest. He was cold, Jake realized, a thin t-shirt against the aggressive AC in Sherry's government office. Before he could think, he lifted an arm and hooked it around his waist. When he looked back for a moment, blinking, Jake made a show of grumbling and shifting and looking inconvenienced._

_"You're crushing me, asshole." He lifted a hand to grab at the file, but Piers held it out at arms length._

_"Quit whining." He said, leaning back again until the top of his head was settled under Jake's chin, pressing his cheek to his shoulder. And Jake sighed, long and loud, as if this was the worst inconvenience he'd ever suffered, sleepily watching Piers and Sherry leaf through files, a faint smile on his lips._

Piers went back to looking at the green gel that was now soaking into the floor.

"That last one- it's still loose." He almost touched it with his glove, but decided against it.

"We're in no shape to go after it." Lisa growled. Piers looked up sharply. A moment of staring her down, and he replied,

"We'll deal with it." Piers stood. Everything was moving, as Gamma relaxed and pulled themselves together. First slowly, and then faster, Beta wound around the scattered members of Gamma and made for the far doors. A mumble came from the floor as Jake passed by, scarcely more than a whisper. 

"That isn't-" A medic stopped for a moment, binding a wound, bandage roll frozen in his hand. His patient was the one that had spoke, fixing his gaze on Jake, face contorting. They made eye contact, and Jake's chest felt cold.

He walked faster, turning his back and twitching his shoulders to throw his collar further up on his neck. As they passed through the door, he dipped his chin down and muttered to Piers,

"What's the word? Infamous?" Piers laughed, a note of harshness to it.

But then they heard the hiss and scuttle of something large moving deeper into the hallway, and Beta froze. About twenty feet away and ugly as sin, the thing stared them down, green eyes glowing in the dim light. The spell broke when the thing knocked a crate over, contents crashing to the floor, and scampered further away, turning a corner quickly and disappearing from view.

Beta moved again, further into the dark, Piers moving his hand in a motion Jake didn't understand. He opened his mouth and turned around to ask, but before it was halfway out, a body collided with his. For the second time in fifteen minutes, Jake got the wind knocked out of him. He nearly fell, fumbling for something to hold onto- And found himself with his gloved right hand tangled into the straps of Piers' uniform.

They blinked and tried to pull back at the same time, but something was snagged and it was dark, so they ended up back where they were, close enough that he could just lean forward and tilt his head down and-

And do... Absolutely nothing.

"Jake-" Piers' touch was light, trying to pull on the snagged fabric, caught in a buckle.

"'M fine. No harm done." He could feel the tremor in his voice, a hint of nervousness that he could never shake. The buckle clicked, and they pulled apart again, easily, Almost absentmindedly, Piers reached up a hand and gently patted the side of his face. His skin was warm, even through the glove, and Jake caught himself leaning into the touch. He was looking at him again, with that inscrutable glare, fabric scraping over his face as he drew his thumb from the corner of Jake's mouth to his cheek-

And then Piers jerked his hand away, as if shocked. He coughed, stepping back and readjusting the rifle in his arms. His headache throbbed, and he could feel eyes on his back. Jake's chest constricted.

Whoops.

"Be careful. It's dark." He couldn't see Piers' face, but his voice was gruff. Jake collected what was left of his pride and followed as they moved further.

The thing proved harder to track than they'd intended. It was fast as all hell and scared half to death, perhaps due to the bullet crippling one of its hind legs. It made a little dragging noise as it scuttled away for the fifth time, hissing. Jake dodged a bout of something green and gluey and fired a shot after it. Predictably, it did nothing. Again, the thing disappeared into the inky dark.

"Quit wasting bullets." Piers muttered, leaning against a wall. "We need to draw it out." Jake sighed, flopping beside him. The wall was hard brick and smelled like fifty years of machinery. Another moment, and he could feel Piers bump into him, resting his head on the side of Jake's arm, shoulder pressing into him. He was warm, and Jake was glad that it was dark.

"As much as I love a good goose chase, I think he's right." Rifle- he'd forgotten the name- offered, propping his cold gun up against the wall. Max, Jake's brain supplied. He ignored it. Somebody else said something, but Jake wasn't listening. How could they get it off the defensive? Jake thought hard for another moment and lifted his head.

"I've got an idea." He declared.

Piers groaned.


	4. what is that song you sing for the dead?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these just keep gettin shorter but i promise i cut it here for Tone and not because im a lazy fucker (which i am but still)

"So... You and the captain, eh?" Ale ribbed lightly, forging his way forward. The doors swung shut behind them, leaving all three of them in the dark again. At the far end of the hallway, something shuffled. Jake hoped it was just a breeze, and started walking forward.

"What?" He replied absentmindedly after a moment, turning on his flashlight and shining it into a knee-high hole in the brick. Too small for the bug-spider-thing. He heard a snicker behind him. Ale was giggling.

The B.O.W. might not be the only thing walking into a trap today. Ale smiled and stepped forward, nudging him with his shoulder. He was so close to throwing the first punch, just watch him-

"You know, you two are all..." He propped a metal door open with a twisted bit of rebar. "

All what-" Jake started, but he heard quiet laughing again, so he sighed out hard, and barked,

"Focus." Under Jake's annoyed glare, Ale weighed the options and decided that if he wanted to come out of this tunnel in one piece, shutting up was probably the best idea.

"You're Beta's demolition expert, right?" He turned to Elle, who rolled her eyes, but nodded.

"That's right."

"How quickly can you plant a tripwire mine?" Elle blinked and considered him for a heartbeat, looking at him like he was speaking in tongues. But she hesitantly slung her huge pack down all the same, yanking out a bunch of supplies, metal and coils of string and little blinking detonators. She looked it over and bit her lip, doing inventory and calculations in her head.

"I don't have one pre-made. Three minutes." She kept her head down as she spoke, already pulling two pieces of circuitry together and clicking them into place.

"You've got two. Smartass, with me." Elle nodded, intent, but Ale jumped, head swiveling towards him.

"What are we-" He nearly squeaked. Jake had to choke back a grin.

"Here's the plan."

* * *

 

"So, your friend-"

Oh, fuck.

"Where'd you meet him?"

This was a calculated assault. Piers knew he shouldn't have let them volunteer. He focused on snapping the sight on his rifle into place and pointedly not meeting Gray's gaze.

"Edonia. Two years ago."

"Really? That's cool." Gray chirped, and said nothing more, clicking one of the components back into his semiautomatic and examining it, brows furrowed. Piers relaxed. Maybe he wasn't giving his squad enough credit. They weren't immature, just rookies-

"It's nice to see you with someone. Team's been worried." Gray nudged his chin over to where Max was perched on a piece of scaffolding, directing his rifle towards the open doorway.

"Him especially."

He'd known Elle and Alejandro had to have been up to something, whispering like that and then conveniently volunteering to go with Jake. He just hadn't expected it to be this.

What was their approach? Divide and conquer? He ought to demerit them for using BOW elimination tactics on their captain. But as much as it annoyed him, he had to admit that their plan was pretty clever. Begrudgingly.

"I have plenty of friends." He answered, slowly, carefully, bringing his rifle up to rest on his shoulder, conveniently pushing Gray's face out of his field of vision.

"You know that's not-" Gray hissed, but before he could finish his sentence, a crash shook the bones of the factory, a loud noise ricocheting off the high ceiling.

"On alert, team!" Piers called into the radio, and the Gamma sniper next to him tensed, adjusting her rifle.

Coming down the hallway was the rapid pounding of boots on concrete.

* * *

"Are you sure-"

"Trust me, kid!" Jake shouted, breath tearing itself from his lungs in huge pulls. They rounded one more corner, where Elle was holding the wire and shot past. Quickly, she pulled it taut, attaching it to the opposite wall and, without hesitation, hauling ass. The thing came shooting into the corridor, splattering greenish-blackish blood from a dead eye. If Jake weren't too busy running, he would have patted himself on the back. Nice aim, Muller. His lungs felt near about ready to burst, but he covered the last couple meters to the doors and threw them open, a second before the thing hit the tripwire and sent a wave of heat and sound and light pouring down the corridor.

He slammed the door shut on the explosion, stumbling into the room and just focusing on staying upright as something rammed itself against the doors, the heated metal bending slightly under the pressure. He was still catching his breath when they exploded outward, sending pieces of metal screeching across the floor in all directions. A jagged piece of shrapnel narrowly missed Jake's eye as he barely rolled out of the way, hearing a faint command over all the commotion:

"Fire!" Piers called, lifting his hand. Jake was close enough to feel the air rush past him as the bullets hit their mark.

"Watch it!" He called, grabbing his handgun from the floor and bolting for the ladder, taking the climb to the catwalk two rungs at a time.

"Stick a target on your head next time. Make it easier for me." Piers said with a hitch to his voice, reloading. Jake pulled the pin out of a grenade and tossed it, watching the little black cylinder arc neatly towards the ground and explode on contact, shaking dust free from the walls.

"Shut up." He said after a long second of silence, having nothing better.

Jake held his gun up, arms outstretched, staring down the sights as the monster stood, shakily crawling its way towards them.

One shot.

It crawled faster, its legs moving more confidently, barreling down the center of the room, headed straight for the catwalk.

Two shots.

It was still coming, legs- why did these things always have so many fucking legs- reaching for the second floor.

Three shots, and- Jake barely had time to dive out of the way before it hopped up, knocking aside a Gamma soldier and neatly cleaving the floor under his feet in two. He was scrambling for purchase on the slightly oily metal, handgun flung from his grip, fingers missing the railing by centimetres.

He heard a garbled voice above his head, a shout, what might have been his name- but it all happened so fast, and then he hit the ground. And he lay there, quietly, painful heat spreading from his side, eyes fluttering shut.


	5. oh, be near me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promised that they were going to be awful and sappy and ive delivered on my promise lol
> 
> https://soundcloud.com/spilt-milk-society/for-the-last-time also my friends keep sending me songs that fit so you guys have to suffer too

_Jake had always been a heavy sleeper, but that morning he woke to the sun on his face and a shifting on the mattress beside him._

_Piers was sitting up with his legs tucked under him and his back to the window, pulling a shirt over his head. It was black, thick cotton with something faded and white scrawled across the front. The sleeves had to be rolled once to fit him properly. Jake watched him put it on with a hint of early-morning confusion, lifting his head slightly and yawning. Eventually, eloquently, he muttered,_

_"That's too big." Piers chuckled, tugging at the hem, glancing at where it hung in folds off his shoulder._

_"Very observant. It's yours, I think."_

_"Liked it better on the floor." Jake laughed. Piers looked down at him for a moment, rolled his eyes, and promptly put a pillow over his face._

_He had to wrestle it off, tossing the pillow aside- it hit the headboard with a soft smack- and wriggling until he had one arm pressing on Piers' wrist and another at his side. He slipped onto his back, eyes widening and catching the light. The sheets smelled like them, like soap and skin and the bad aftershave he wore that Piers was always nagging him about and they were both laughing and the sun from the window was warm on his side and he'd lied, he really liked the way Piers looked in his shirt-_

_Jake leaned down slowly, movements stilling, hand moving under his chin and tilting his jaw up so he could reach his mouth. He kissed him until he couldn't anymore, and then kissed him again until a shrill ringing cut through the air. Piers rolled away to pick up the cell, and Jake sighed through his teeth, settling onto his side and rubbing his eyes. It was too early, he noticed. The bedside clock clearly read 7:30, in square, utilitarian letters. Behind it was the large window, blinds half-open, letting light diffuse into the gray, spartan room. It had always been that way, the only signs of habitation was the calendar on the wall, faded by the sun, the open closet, and today, the trail of clothes they'd left from the door to the bed the night before. And then Piers came back, pulling the phone and nuzzling his nose into Jake's neck, and he forgot to care about the time entirely. The noise cut out mid-ring as he answered, and Jake pulled him closer, eyes half-shut._

_"Piers Nivans here." He sighed. There was a faint, tinny buzz coming from the other end of the phone's speakers._

_"Yeah, yeah-" Piers blinked, half sitting up._

_"You're- Actually?" He paused for a moment, and the other end of the line buzzed._

_"Yeah. I can definitely- yeah." He almost laughed for a moment after he hung up, kicking the covers off and sitting cross-legged in the middle of the mattress, phone still dangling from his hand._

_"Chris called- I've been assigned a squad. Beta." On hearing him a second time, he sounded wrong. A degree off. Fear, rather than excitement. His eyes were focused firmly on a spot in the middle of the mattress, and he was biting his bottom lip._

_"And that's... good?" Jake prodded gently, raising his eyebrows._

_"Yeah, I guess it is-" He put his hands over his face, voice muffled through his fingers and trembling slightly. His entire body was shaking almost imperceptibly, like he would fall to pieces at any second, leave himself in a disconnected heap on the bed. Jake had known he was stressed, but... Christ. He looked about ready to combust. Piers tucked his knees up to his chest and wrapped his hands around his ankles. "I just... I don't think I'm ready. At all." Jake sat up too, moving until they were next to each other and nudging his shoulder. Piers looked up for a moment. His eyes were wet, and he was blinking hard. Fuck. What was he supposed to do? The last time anyone had cried near Jake (Sherry, two weeks ago, when they'd watched that stupid movie about the puppy that they thought was going to be cute until the fucking thing went and kicked the bucket) he'd frozen up, spent the better part of fifteen minutes trying to hug her and awkwardly staring at a spot on the wall behind her head where the paint was peeling. And that was just some dumb movie about a dog, so he was seriously out of his depth here-_

_"Are you... petting me?" Piers muttered after a long moment, the sound muffled from where his face was pressed to his knees. Jake glanced over, confused, and realized he'd been idly threading his fingers through his hair, some subconscious attempt to calm him._

_"What? Fuck, I dunno-" His hand froze, but Piers sniffed softly and lifted his head a little more, lips curving up at the corners._

_"S'nice." Piers sighed heavily, leaning until his cheek was pressed to Jake's shoulder and closing his eyes. Jake bent down, arm hooked around his waist, and hesitantly planted a kiss on the top of his head._

_It scared him how nice it felt like this, not speaking, with city noise barely slipping through the seventh-floor window, feeling Piers' warm body next to his as he breathed in and out and his shaking stilled. Piers rubbed his eyes on the heel of his hand, erasing every trace of weakness. Jake knew he only had a couple minutes until Piers denied what had happened, decided to up and move and bustle around to pretend he was busy. For now they sat still, perhaps reluctant to move away, or else too tired to._

_It scared him that he wanted this to last forever, because with his track record it was more likely to last for another month, if that, before it crashed and burned and he was alone again._

_He supposed he was used to that, but this time it was really going to sting._

_Jake shoved those thoughts out of his mind and piped up, teasing,_

_"You'll do fine. Since when are you bad at bossing people around?"_

_Piers flipped him off without even looking up._

* * *

 

_"Send something, yeah? A call or an e-mail or whatever- so I know you haven't gone and gotten yourself shot." Piers quipped, fishing his boarding pass from his jacket pocket and shoving his sunglasses up onto his head to squint at the little lettering for the fifth time, like it would change at any moment. As always, it read B-26._

_They were walking towards the airport gate now, a little ways from the knot of BSAA soldiers that had accumulated, with their tiny, neat little military bags and identical haircuts. When he and Piers had entered the big room, he'd gotten exactly one glare and one awkward smile, from some tiny rookie and Captain Redfield, in that order. None of them were looking at him anymore, as if he'd just disappear if they turned their backs._

_"I think I can manage that." Jake stopped for a moment to let a convoy of quickly-moving tourists pass. They stepped out of the momentary traffic jam and found themselves outside gate B-25, in between B-24 and -26. Redfield smiled at him again, an attempt to make amends. He swallowed the urge to tell him where exactly he could shove his amends. Instead, he turned to Piers._

_"I'll see you soon?" Jake leaned down to put the gray military-grade bag on the floor between them and smiled in a manner he hoped was reassuring, but probably just looked painful. Piers grinned up at him anyway, picking up the bag and pressing up on his tiptoes, eyes half-shut, holding onto his shirt collar for purchase and-_

_Softly, he pressed his lips to the corner of Jake's mouth. He could feel his face heat up, and he blinked hard, jerking back. That didn't last very long, because Piers' hand was still hooked around his collar and they were still close and he was still smiling in that way that always made Jake's insides melt, so soon enough they were kissing again. He could feel Chris' eyes on his back, but he didn't particularly care. There was an announcement blaring from the speaker above their heads, something about B and 26 and 'boarding now' and Jake really wasn't paying attention-_

_Until Piers pulled back, looking embarassed and more than a bit flustered and really, really cute. He picked up the bag again, slinging it over his shoulder this time and sighing, trying to pull himself into order. Before he stepped away, he stopped, glancing up one more time._

_"See you in a month, Jake."_

* * *

 

_Lying his head on the window of his car, Jake unzipped one of his jacket pockets and pulled out his phone. He scrolled through the chipped display, on the pretense of checking for messages. As always, at the top of the screen, glowing blue, a little box read "DRAFTS: 15" in those square letters with the shitty aliasing. Like he did after a mission, in some kind of self-hating urge, he clicked on it, opening a neat blue list. Fifteen e-mails, in various states of completion, stared back at him. Fifteen unsent messages to the same address, the first one dating back three months._

_He really wasn't good at this sort of thing._

_Again, he opened a new one. DRAFTS: 16. For the sixteenth time, he froze after entering the address, after putting something nondescript into the subject field. How were you supposed to start something like that?_

_Hello._

_Hi._

_I love you._

_He turned his phone off, stomach prickling, and jammed it deep into his pocket, pressing his cheek into the cool glass of the window. As always, he sounded pathetic. Piers was probably too busy to answer anyway, he told himself._

_In the glare of the sun driving into his eyes, Jake felt his phone buzz, startling him and making him knock his forehead on the frame of the door. He pulled it out and, squinting to see around the all-encompassing sunset, read the caller ID. For a second, he felt hopeful-_

_Sherry, and three little emoticons that she'd entered herself into the display, informing him that this was how the kids did it these days and that he'd better keep up. Sherry, teddy bear, party cracker, heart, Birkin. In spite of himself, Jake smiled. He steadied his breathing, closed his eyes, and picked it up on the third ring._


	6. lost my strength completely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> omg im sorry this took so FUCKIN long this part LITERALLY fought me tooth and nail...... and it really fucking sucks..... but just one more chapter!!! i'm also gonna be releasing something else (for a different pairing actually, imagine that lol) soon so look out for that too!!!

He didn't stay out for very long, waking up to someone patting the side of his face, speaking in his ear. The voice was urgent, hurried, and... scared?

He cracked an eye, letting in a sliver of light and sending a wedge of pain straight through his eye socket, but quickly enough he closed it again and leaned back against the wall- he was propped up, he noted neutrally.

"Don't fall asleep- Hey! Hey." And then Piers was at his ear again. Jake squinted at him through his eyelashes, wondering what all the fuss was about.

"Sit up, and look at me." Piers pleaded, and he remembered. He sat up, too fast, making his head spin and his stomach attempt to crawl out of his mouth. Still, he managed to choke out,

"Izzit dead?" Fuck, his voice sounded like hell, all gravelly. His throat was full of dust and grit. He could feel it in his face and down his neck, settling heavy on his eyelashes. Piers sighed, and through one cracked eye, Jake caught him smiling, just slightly.

"Yeah," He muttered, putting a hand under Jake's chin and reaching behind himself, clicking something open.

"Just stay still." Something damp wiped over his face, stinging along the open cut at his hairline. His entire body felt raw, gritty, wet with blood, especially his left side, which currently hurt like a motherfucker under his clothes, narrowly missing the bottom seam of his neat, compact bulletproof vest. Why the fuck had he worn this thing? Somebody handed him water and he drank it slowly, grimacing.

"You're lucky that worked." Piers complained.

"You do care." He teased, lifting his hand and gently ruffling Piers' hair.

"Shut up." He said. Jake grinned. And, ruining a perfectly good moment, that nurse kid- Gray- decided to kneel down, open his dumb-ass med kit, and start poking around at Jake's skull. His entire head felt tender, and the world around him hadn't really stopped spinning. He could vaguely see people milling around through clouds of sawdust slowly floating to the ground.

"Possible concussion, and that rebar fucked him up pretty bad. It'll need stitches, but we can do that at base camp." Gray concluded, pulling out a roll of bandage. Rebar? Jake glanced down at his midsection, at the drying bloodstain on his shirt. Christ.

After a long minute of silence, helping Gray bandage Jake's side, Piers sighed through his teeth and looked back at Jake. His face was drawn, worried, but he caught his eye and smiled.

"If you die, I'll kill you. Got it?" He declared after a second, doing his best to look serious. Jake laughed.

"Yessir." He replied. Piers glared him down.

"And don't call me sir."

* * *

 

Jake flitted back and forth, in and out of sleep, half-listening to the hum of the radio speaker clipped to Piers' belt. When it crackled and spat and coughed out a couple of sentences from Base's operator, asking about their location, he could barely understand the words, but he liked seeing the grins of Beta as Ale tuned the reciever and reconnected the antenna.

Slowly, he pulled the phone from his pocket. After a moment of fiddling, he sent the building diagnostics and infection counts he'd scrounged from the rest of the units that now filled the hall, Alpha and Echo and Delta, and sent it to the address Sherry had given him. In the corner of the screen was that little white-and-blue box. DRAFTS:16. As the thin white bar crawled towards the other side of the screen and the message started to send itself, he glanced up at the BSAA squads, packing up to move to the extraction site. He'd been told to expect maybe one or two teams- certainly not big shots like Alpha, or even Beta. He certainly hadn't expected to get injured this badly, not on a solo reconnaissance mission. Piers would say it was recklessness, Sherry would attempt optimism and call it enthusiasm, say he just loved his job. Somehow, he felt it was neither, but what else would motivate him to get his ass kicked? He was left feeling like an idiot when Piers held out his hand and pulled him to his feet.

"Hurry, or we'll miss the heli." Jake swallowed his pride, put an arm around Piers' shoulder, and let him lead the way.

* * *

 

"So... what?" Piers muttered as the heavy metal door clanged shut behind them and the air shifted, changing from the heavy, dusty smell of the factory floor to the rotting smell of the outside, like quickly-decomposing vegetation and... was that gasoline? Piers continued, slightly under his breath,

"No 'Hey, boyfriend of six months? How's work treatin' you?'" Boyfriend. He'd heard him properly, right? He stared down at Piers, eyes wide, but he wasn't paying attention, forging forward, away from the factory. Boyfriend. He tested out the word in his head. His boyfriend was nodding to a few medical officers, voice quieting as they passed some higher-ups.

"Not even a fucking e-mail, Jake?" He nearly hissed, all of the earlier relief gone from his tone. Jake could feel something hot building behind his eyes.

"It's not like you made an effort, either." He snapped, turning his head away. Like an asshole. So much for civility, then. Piers opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Slowly, he shut it. A helicopter cut through the air, starting to descend. Jake stumbled back into Piers' shoulder, who lifted his hand and used it to shield his eyes. Blessedly, there was silence. The helicopter lowered itself to the ground tentatively. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake watched a woman launch herself from the open hatch and, slinging her rifle over her shoulder, run full tilt across the clearing.

"We're both idiots, aren't we?" Piers muttered softly, shaking his head. Jake looked down at him. On closer inspection, he looked bad. Exhausted and strained and covered in tiny flecks of blood. On some thoughtless impulse, Jake leaned in, on the pretense of brushing a spot of ash from his cheek. He felt Piers' breathing change as he sighed, the hand on Jake's back tangling in the blood-crusted fabric of his shirt.

"I guess so." Jake watched as the woman caught up to the rest of Beta and nearly bowled Elle over with a hug. Elle grinned and grabbed her by the waist, picking her up and spinning her a couple times, narrowly avoiding hitting Gray, who grumbled from where he was kneeling, crouched over his bag and performing another supply check. They turned away, Piers nodded to the pilot and helped Jake into a seat. He flopped down, side complaining, as the rest of Beta piled in.

"Okay- Listen. You can't tell anyone this-" Jake started. Piers did up his seatbelt and raised an eyebrow, casting his gaze to Elle struggling with the buckle and Max trying to help her, albeit aggressively and ineffectively.

* * *

 

Ale craned his neck around the side of the seat. "Christ, Muller's gettin' it."

"Gettin' what-" Gray chortled, turning around too, peering between the gray-lined heli seats into the back. "Shit."

"The fuckin' third degree over there. He's in deep shit."

"Cap can't save the boyfriend drama until later?" Elle said, trying to peer over the headrest and promptly smacking her head on the ceiling. "Fuck's sake. We're crammed in here like goddamn sardines."

"The Captain wouldn't like hearing you talk like that." A voice chimed. Max barely lifted his nose from a small tactical manual when he continued, "It's disrespectful."

Three things happened at once. Ale burst out laughing, snorted a couple times, and continued to peer over the seat. Elle mimicked Max's words back to him in a high-pitched voice, a squeaky "eet's disreespectfuhl". Gray called him a suck-up, while slowly and measuredly attaching his seatbelt as the alert from the pilot flickered unsteadily above their heads. Quietly, from her seat, Georgia snapped off her locator and quickly shoved in a pair of earbuds. Around her, the commotion continued.

* * *

 

"Do I want to know?" Piers sighed eventually, as the heli began to rock from side to side.

"Shut up. Just promise." Jake leaned over and nudged him with his shoulder.

"Swear." He replied, arms crossed, voice flat. The helicopter started to ascend. Jake got a glimpse of green treetops through a distant window. Here goes.

"I missed you." He said, slowly, softly, as he watched Piers lift his head and peel off his gloves, letting them drop onto his canvas bag, stiff with blood and dirt and god knew what else.

"That's your big secret?" He glanced back at him tentatively, brushing grains of dirt out of his sleeve.

"Gotta... you know. Maintain my image." Jake quipped, leaning back and trying to look nonchalant even though his mouth was dry and he could feel the blood freezing in his veins. For a moment, it was quiet, until Piers laughed and shook his head.

"You're an ass." He declared with finality. Wind buffeted through the carriage of the helicopter for a moment before the doors clicked shut, making Jake's eyes sting. Piers peeled off the remaining glove and started to remove the bits of his outer shell, pieces of metal and plastic with the cloth straps and the heavy brown buckles. In between one strap and the next, tilting to the side to let the shoulder of the vest slide off, as if he were reading the weather:

"I missed you, too." Piers muttered, and continued to undo the clasp at his thigh. Jake'd helped him remove it a couple times after training, and it never got any less complex. One knee pad, and then the other.

"I tried. You know. To call?" Jake muttered, like an afterthought.

"What, too busy?" He almost sneered it, and then his face collapsed in on itself and he sighed again, zipping up the bag with all of his tactical crap, the harnesses and the weird watch with the GPS, and the little blinking mic.

"Didn't know what to say." Piers glanced at him then, his brows gathering together, biting the inside of his cheek.

"Don't... do that again. Okay?" His voice was strained, like it hurt to speak. Jake's stomach sank. He bit his lip, turned away for a moment, shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest. Quietly laughing at himself. Eventually, he spat it out,

"I was worried. Maybe. A little bit." He admitted, as if it was a grand confession, that he actually gave a shit. Jake reached over and peeled one of his hands away, lacing their fingers together. Piers glanced up, smiled, remembered he was supposed to be mad, and quickly jerked his chin back down again.

"Aw, that's embarassin'." Jake retorted automatically, and Piers rolled his eyes, slumping further in his seat. He watched the smile on his face disappear under the camouflage net still wrapped around his neck.

"I take it back. Go to Hell." He muttered, voice quiet through the fabric. Jake shook his head and leaned against the humming metal behind him, watching the ground get smaller and smaller. Neither of them looked at each other, but they both spoke, quietly, under the vibration of the heli and the chatter filling the seats in front of them.

"I'm sorry." Jake said, point blank, looking out the window.

"It's okay." The reply came without hesitation.

And then they didn't speak, all of their words used up.


End file.
